Part of the problem is that smart boys are considered geeky and nerdy and not masculine. They are the Peter Parkers, and though there is competition among the smart kids (judged by GPA), though schools will proudly laud academic achievement, it rarely makes the news.

Society’s POV of geeks is changing. Kids… less so. Bullying, harassment… that continues.

Man… If I had gained super powers in high school, I’d have been tempted to exact revenge, not fight crime.

Boys and girls simply develop differently, and if they wish to change these statistics, they need to figure out ways to teach more effectivly to boys.

Although I’m not overly concerned with iliteracy as much as I use to be. The interner is probably one of the largest driving forces to enourage reading on some level. (You can’t look up youtube videos without knowing something)

Many students, and unfortunately many of the most brilliant ones, are round pegs being hammered into square holes by an inflexible education system. Thanks to President Bush’s “No Child Left Behind,” schools seek only to educate children to score well on these standardized tests which will determine the federal funding that will be issued to their school district.

Focusing on a narrow “standard” cripples the ability of teachers to be creative and the student’s opportunity to learn in a way that is conducive to their own individuality.

It is proven that comics can be a valuable educational tool but so long as they remain outside the parameters of what is considered standard in education they will always be a hard sell.

and as far as the girls in my class reading better – well i took it as just another way to dismiss my bombastic attitude. i also entertained the sexist notion – that alotta drama that resided in the books (aimed at our reading level) were a rehearsal of context. so i kinda chalked it up as another form of makeup. the girls read up, like they were looking into buying a car/house/special breed of pet. almost like each book was a matter of investigative journalism. i read like i was trying to re-chart the course as dictated, and correct for any realities that might set upon me after arduously glossing through it.

dont know how the other boys fared, but i was pretty vocal about my paranoia. adults were probably quipping up historical synopsis and jaunty romps through life lessons..trying to imprint us with the self-perceptions that got away from them. getting away, being a polite assumption that each writer failed some social structure previously. maybe they faltered to realize something fundamental about a supposed narrative structure in their own lives.

i still think people are out to seize on young minds and perceptions – but i realize now that those folks are pedos/clergy/and marketing executives.

Oh, I fully acknowledge the irony of where I posted this.

kdb

There are no girls in comics the same way there are no girls on the internet. This is because as a whole women are brought up to believe that the more devoid they are of personality or interest the more attractive of a mate they will be for any perspective life-partners (who will of course pay for them and tend to them for the rest of time in exchange for sexual favors).

This is the life of 99% of females. Dull, vapid with glassed over eyes and zero aspirations. Or maybe I’m just spending too much time out here in LA.

Either way. I solved your problem. Therfore…

/thread.

I do have boys who won’t read anything outside of the “loud/gross/stupid” category. However, most of these guys don’t read superhero comics — they read shonen manga.
The superhero comics they do read usually tie into a media property — Iron Man, Batman, Ben 10.

Then, I have the guys who do read. Most of them read a lot. These guys tend to gravitate towards hard sci-fi and high fantasy books. These guys do read superhero comics.

A lot of these guys, the readers, have been complaining to me about superhero comics lately. Most of their complaints revolve around the lack of story, unnecessary violence and never ending universe “events”. So, I would argue, that focusing on the action elements of superhero comics could actually be alienating readers.

I have a four-year-old nephew. I gave him the box set of Toon Books last year, and he practically memorized them! He enjoyed the stories, but also learned the lessons presented in each book. (Why wishing that everything should be orange is not a good idea, or why cooperation is important.)

When someone is having a first baby, I always give “The Read-Aloud Handbook” by Jim Trelease. Parents should start the moment the child is born; the child will gain language skills and acclimatize to the parent’s voice.

The Diamond Bookshelf is an excellent resource for librarians. The Maryland Comic Book Initiative
http://www.marylandpublicschools.org/MSDE/programs/recognition-partnerships/md-comic-book
is actively using comics statewide.
“The purpose of the initiative is to introduce and encourage the use of award-winning and other credible graphic novels and comic book materials in classroom instruction. These materials are not to be a replacement of traditional texts and instruction, but rather an additional means to enhance reading instruction by motivating students to read more and better. ”

I learned to read partly from the Easy Reader and Spider-Man on the Electric Company. I read my brothers’ comics (and later their copies of National Lampoon). I read the comics in Highlights and Boys’ Life (ignoring everything else). According to the California Achievement Test, I was reading at a Twelfth-Grade level in the Seventh Grade. Part of that was comics, part of it was finding exciting stories to read.

The Marvel Adventure comics are excellent, balancing action with conflict. Johnny DC is half fun titles (Scooby-Doo, Cartoon Network) and half fun/moral comics (Super Friends, Shazam). I would love to see both companies produce easy-to-read comics. Could Marvel print an Essential Spidey Super Stories collection? Even if they drop the Sesame Workshop stories by Tom Whedon, et al., there would still be enough stories to appeal to young readers.

I could go on, but read this instead:
http://www.diamondbookshelf.com/lessons/Librarians_Guide_57_61.pdf
It’s excerpted from David Serchay’s “The Librarian’s Guide to Graphic Novels for Children and Tweens” (978-1-55570-626-5)

Where I lived in the 60’s, all boys read comics of one type or another. The other neighbourhood boys mostly read war comics, so we swapped those with each other, those and Charlton car comics like Hot Rod Racing.

I mostly liked the DC comics for the conservative nature of their drawings, and the wacky but tame stories. Marvel was okay, but mostly filled with page after page of large drawings of heroes fighting. And Marvel comics were always continued. I remember thinking that spending 12 cents on a continued story was a poor investment.

To this day, I dislike continued stories, preferring done-in-ones. And I love encouraging kids to read and draw.